The Malik Report

I apolgize for being a little late to the party on this one, but I was having fun fun fun anxiety attacks today, so here's what Daniel Alfredsson had to say about his playing future, as noted by DetroitRedWings.com's Bill Roose (he's going to wait and decide after the season, but if he continues to play, he will continue to play in Detroit):

“I’ve gone through this the last two years,” Alfredsson said. “I’ve talked to other players before. The consensus I get is play as long as you can, pretty much from everyone. If you feel you still have the energy and desire definitely continue as long as you can. That’s been the common theme.”

The Detroit Red Wings are a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in the Azeri rebel ham sandwich that Jimmy Howard may or may not have eaten during the Olympics.

In simpler and plainer English, I don't think that we're going to figure this team out, at least not until it does or does not make the playoffs, because the night after the Wings punted away a point in their 4-3 OT loss to Colorado, the Wings played similarly messy hockey, their goaltending was even shakier than it was against the Avs, the kids continued to make mistakes, the defense was doofy in terms of allowing the Devils to walk in and score...

And yet the Wings managed to just lay waste to Corey Schneider's goals-against average, rallying from a blown 3-2 deficit 11:44 into the second with five straight goals--including a trio scored 3 minutes and 14 seconds--en route to a 7-4 win whose lustre wasn't dimmed by Smith and Kindl letting Adam Henrique to walk in and make the score look closer than it was with 1:18 remaining.

Hours before he was supposed to lead a team into the MHSAA semifinal ice hockey tournament, Grandville High School's hockey team co-captain Ryan Fischer passed away, according to school and MHSAA sources.

Ryan, 17, was found unresponsive in his home early this morning, school officials said.

"From my understanding, (Ryan) went to sleep last night. There were no symptoms, no warning signs. He was unresponsive when his father went to wake him up this morning," said Grandville Superintendent Ron Caniff.

Babcock said in addition to Gustavsson starting tonight vs. Devils only change is Kindl in for Lashoff. Kindl (knee) hasn't played since 2-3

Helm said he'll be out at least another week due to concussion-like symptoms. Said he hit head on ice and was grazed in chin in Ottawa.

added 12:16pm, Chuck Pleiness of Red Wings Front has more on Helm,

“The tests I did nothing really showed too much,” Helm said. “I’m not really having symptoms that people normally have with concussions. There are small symptoms there that show that I could possibly have one, but I’m not one of those bad cases where guys are throwing up or are really dizzy or having trouble with the light. I am getting the headaches and it’s keeping me off the ice and from working out. That vision thing as well from the game is something concerning as well.”...

“The next game it wasn’t that bad, we had a day off right after and I was fine,” Helm said. “Practice went well, a little bit of a headache that night and it carried over to the game (in New Jersey).

“It was never a piercing headache and kind of came and went as well,” Helm continued. “It was never bad. Then the Jersey game I got a headache, it wasn’t killing me, the headache itself wasn’t keeping me out of the game, but I was having troubles with vision, seeing the puck. I was told it was kind of migraine symptom that could have been caused by the head as well.”

The Detroit Red Wings raised Nicklas Lidstrom's number to the rafters, and got off to a wonderful start against the despised Colorado Avalanche...

But the Wings have never won a game in which Lidstrom was publicly announced as in attendance in his post-playing career, and as the crowd left surprisingly early (perhaps they were subscribing to a certain Avs scribe's Tweets complaining about the late start), the gas seemed to go out of the Wings' young guns and new players alike--and yes, the "Kid Line" was once again in "learning" mode, because they were both responsible for the 2-1 goal...

And the 3-2 game-winner in OT, with Jimmy Howard really playing much better than his 3-goals-on-25-shots total suggests, and now the Wings facing a surprisingly early start against the Devils having lost two straight games.

Updated with a ton of video at 9:08 PM: Nicklas Lidstrom was given an African safari and a Dodge Ram quad cab (a diesel for Sweden) as his number was retired to the rafters of Joe Louis Arena this evening:

Lidstrom thanked Brad McCrimmon, Steve Yzerman, Scotty Bowman, Mike Babcock, the Ilitches, his teammates, his family and the fans, but in the end, he is a family man, and that's why he moved home to Vasteras to coach his sons' hockey team:

Well, he made it. Nice touch at the end of his speech, thanking his family: "It’s just not my name, its our name on the back of my sweater."

No tears. But close. And yes, Henrik Zetterberg looked like he was pretending to not be wearing a post-surgical back brace while wearing a suit, and Pavel Datsyuk was limping, but Datsyuk always limps, even when he's healthy. And Vladdie and Homer were the other heroes of the night.

Updated repeatedly at 4:05 PM: Given the furor regarding the Red Wings' trading of Calle Jarnkrok to Nashville for David Legwand, managerial explanations included, and the Wings' status as an undermanned team heading into tonight's Nicklas Lidstrom retirement ceremony game against the Avs...This move, one of the Red Wings' 4 post-trade-deadline recalls sans a roster emergency--seems...strangely-timed:

Here's an attempt to summarize the Nashville and Swedish takes on the Legwand-for-Eaves-and-Jarnkrok trade:

The Red Wings' decision to trade top prospect Calle Jarnkrok to the Nashville Predators in the David Legwand trade may rank up there with the Federko-for-Oates deal in terms of the controversy it's stirred up amongst Red Wings fans, myself included, so you should know that while Aftonbladet's Linus Norberg, TSN's Bob McKenzie and myself have all heard rumors--from people that had no benefit in lying to us--that Jarnkrok was considering heading back to Sweden to play for his hometown team, Brynas IF in Gavle...

About The Malik Report

The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.